The Farmers are Not Alright
Top Story: The Farmers are not alright.
Sometimes at Reporting Right, we see a story that is so good…it gets us thinking.
This Tennessee Look Out* piece about the declining mental health of American farmers is one of them. (Hats off to Estefania Pinto Ruiz.)
(*See the story for info on the other collaborators.)
The piece encapsulates so much a good piece of journalism ought to:
info on an overlooked population
insight into how political allegiances work
ideas about who bears the brunt of technological revolutions
Many of you report in communities where farmers reside.
As always, we have ideas.
Farm Story Ideas
Down on data
For a small group of farmers, the data center craze has been a boon. For a lot of them, not so much. Tell that story.
LIKE THIS: Who wants that data center, anyway?
Shut-down blues
For many Americans, the shut-down was one and done. For farmers, the pain lingers. How are they hurting? And why?
LIKE THIS: For farmers, the shut-down is still being felt.
Droning on
The Trump trade war with China is bad news for drone access. And drones, it turns out, are some of American farmers’ best friends. How are they handling this? Who are they blaming?
LIKE THIS: When the drones were working.
ICE-induced labor shortages
ICE crackdowns have swept through the farming community, disrupting work flow. Farmers are waiting for GOP reps to fix it. How is this impacting their bottom line, mental health, faith in their electeds?
LIKE THIS: Trump’s immigration crackdowns hurt.
Trump: Friend or foe?
American farmers loved Trump. Now, that’s changing. How did this happen?
LIKE THIS: Bearing the brunt.
Also in the news
Disappeared to a foreign prison.
Vanity Fair was rethinking…now it’s said “no” to Nuzzi.
Sex, not laughter, may be the best medicine.
Close to half of Americans say cost-of-living worse than they can recall.
We’re Watching
Comic Relief
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See You Next Week!
Our Staff
Executive Editor Kyle Spencer
Our Board of Advisors
Alex Aronson, executive director of Court Accountability
David Armiak, research director for the Center for Media and Democracy
Connor Gibson, founder of Grassrootbeer Investigations
Maurice Cunningham, retired associate professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts at Boston and author of Dark Money and The Politics of School Privatization.
Isaac Kamola, associate professor of political science at Trinity College, founder of Faculty First Responders and co-author of Free Speech and Koch Money, Manufacturing a Campus Culture War
Nancy MacLean, William H. Chafe distinguished professor of history and public policy at Duke University and author of Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America
Ralph Wilson, founder of the Corporate Genome Project and co-author of Free Speech and Koch Money, Manufacturing a Campus Culture War
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